{"id":295352,"date":"2026-02-17T08:02:06","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T08:02:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/295352\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T08:02:06","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T08:02:06","slug":"why-is-raw-sewage-spilling-into-homes-and-gardens-in-the-south","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/295352\/","title":{"rendered":"Why is raw sewage spilling into homes and gardens in the South?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Periods of prolonged and intense rainfall<\/a> across parts of southern England have this year seen river levels rise and put drainage systems under pressure.<\/p>\n

In many areas, the same underground pipes carry both household wastewater and rainwater from roads, roofs and drains. <\/p>\n

Water companies say that when heavy or sustained rain fills these systems beyond capacity, sewage can be forced back up through manholes, drains or household pipework – a process described as “hydraulic overload”. <\/p>\n

Further strain can be caused by groundwater seeping into pipes through cracks or inspection chambers during wet weather.<\/p>\n

In Stanford Dingley, in Berkshire, raw sewage emerged from manholes and flowed into gardens<\/a> during a period of particularly heavy rainfall. <\/p>\n

Homeowner James Devine said: “We get lots of sewage, lots of toilet paper and other bits and pieces coming into our garden.” <\/p>\n

In Wimborne Minster, in Dorset, Susannah Gill described waking to find her garden underwater after severe weather<\/a> in January.<\/p>\n

She said it was “amazing” to find what people put in their sewers – including wipes and earbuds – and called the scene “pretty revolting”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Periods of prolonged and intense rainfall across parts of southern England have this year seen river levels rise…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":295353,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[242,85,46,141],"class_list":["post-295352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295352\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}